Firezone Studios has some very nice pictures, especially of some recent 6mm figures apparently for Future War Commander.

Well, mostly. I got the special stands finished up. All I have left are the Highlanders, but as I have about forty points of stands painted up and my opponent has yet to paint anything, I'll let them sit. Here, you see an Aerial Hero Pegasus and a Paladin Unicorn.

Here, Heroes and Clerics. See the one guy holding up the Holy Grail?

This took about an hour and fifteen minutes to do twenty one stands, so we're looking at 11:35 over the span of a month to paint about forty nine points of HotT troops, at roughly thirty minutes a stand. If you were going to stick at twenty four points, with nine stands, it would have taken me about four and a half hours to do. Not bad for a complete, fun army.

That gives me three armies, with an Evil wild men/bad knights army still to paint. The idea is to do a campaign, but I'm waiting on my buddy, so I'll set these aside and move on to something else until he gets his rear in gear!

I finished the five stands of Shooters tonight.

I did a full strip plus one figure per rank, for seven figures per rank. They're glued on irregularly-- some with the strips glued flush left, other flush right, and still others staggered. I then levelled out the bases with epoxy, painted and glued static grass on as usual.

This took about fifty minutes, bringing the total time to 10:20. I have 34 points of HotT units now.

This leaves only the Highlanders I planned on doing as Warbands. Eh, I'm not really inspired to do them. Of course, I wasn't for the Shooters, either. I should just do them and get them out of the way. Plus, I need a Hero and a Paladin on Cleric or something like that to go along with it. There are still a few things left to do.

Got the six stands of Blades finished tonight.

Finished them the same way as the Knights. Remember that, not knowing how I would end up basing them, I had painted their bases green. That didn't really work with how I decided to base them, so there was some fiddly work with a paintbrush getting in between the ranks. I only did the two deepest colors, trying to get rid of most of the green, as most of that area of base will never be seen, and any green bits should fit in just fine with the static grass.

It took me about ten minutes to clear coat all my figures (not counting drying time for the two coats, gloss polyurethane and Testor's Dullcote) and about fifty minutes to base these figures. The total time is now 8:20, with 18 points of HotT stands completed.

I went ahead and finished the three stands of knights.

I painted the stands brown and raw sienna. Both are thin paints, not really covering well by themselves, but they help color the base while also acting like a primer for subsequent coats. I follow that up with successively lighter drybrushings of golden brown and some muted tans. I then covered the base with Woodlands Scenics Scenic Cement, and dippped it into GW's static grass.

I used to make my own "scenic cement" of 1 part white glue to 1 part water, with just a touch of dishwashing detergent, but I decided it's just easier to buy it. One bottle lasts a while unless you're doing terrain pieces.

The GW static grass is, I believe, repackaged Noch static grass. Up close, it doesn't look that real to me, but from observing my test stand a while, I think it looks better than the single blend Woodlands Scenics static grasses I use. I don't need much of it so it's easier for me just to get a small, overpriced bag down the road at Hobbytown.

It took me twenty minutes to finish the bases, so the total time is now 7:20.

Ugh. I realize now that I haven't clear coated these figures yet! Clear coating static grass tends to leave noticeable drops on the grass. Ah well, they'll be okay without it...

I procrastinated a bit on the archers, not really wanting to paint them, but finally got around to them.

Pretty much more of the same. They were a little more difficult to paint since the bodies are at right angles to me when I paint them, forcing me to take four passes-- left and right angles along each side-- as opposed to just two passes. Still, it only took an hour and fifteen minutes to paint them, it wasn't bad once I got started. Total time is now 7:00.

A couple more little things I sculpted but forgot to take pictures of:

A 6mm dragon skull, and a Venus of Willendorf statue, maybe for some primitive cleric's base. Hey, if some primitive screwhead can sculpt it, so can I!

I've been trying my hand a sculpting again lately. Not great, often not even good, but not terrible, either.

A giant 6mm evil treeman...thing. I forgot to include a scale, but he's 1.5" tall and 2.5" wide.

A beetle...thing. I guess he's kind of scale independant. I didn't really have a scale in mind, just the carapace laying around I had done a while back with some leftover putty. The body is about 3/4" long.

No, this is a lurker. Two pieces, blue-taced together for the picture. Tops out at an inch tall. You can see I started to cut the body shorter, but thought I could always do that after casting it, rather than having to add to it if I wanted it taller.

Naga! I was pretty pleased with the sculpture on this, but ran into a number of problems. First, the bow was just too thin for me to drop cast. Second, I intended to twist the torso so that he fired forward, but the metal was too brittle and the torso torqued off. Third, this thing would never sit on the intended 20mm deep base without having them all coming in at an angle, and spearmen on 15mm would be worse. I may redo them on top of coils instead. The flat green is 7/8" from tail to tip of bow.

I cleaned up the 12 strips of bowmen and 12 strips of Highlanders, washed them with soap, glued them to craft sticks and spray painted them last night. The paint did work better with the wash. That took about thirty minutes, then it took about ten minutes to drybush the bowmen. I couldn't just drybrush down the strip like I've been doing, and it wasn't much fun, so I quit after that. I wasn't very motivated last night anyway. Total time is now 5:45.

I shouldn't really say the rest of the army, I'll probably do a hero stand and a cleric or paladin stand for this army, but this will finish up the bulk of the painting.

I took step-by-step pictures explaining how I painted my Spears.

Alright, as noted earlier, first I cleaned up the strips, glued them to a craft stick, spray painted them black, and dry-brushed them with white. Below you can see the reults.

Next, I paint the spears and the metallics. The spear wood is burnt umber, very dark and doesn't photograph very well. The metals are an "old gold" and Gunmetal, as I intended to go over them later with a highlight.

Next, I took "Spice Brown," a less dark brown, and highlighted the spears and painted the legs. I did both pretty much by running a paint brush along the length of the craft stick. I also painted the cloaks and scabbards on the back. Notice that the brown really did "auto highlight" with the black and white undercoat. I'm impressed with that, and intend to use that as an intentional technique.

Next, I highlighted the brown. In the second picture, I highlighted the metallics. Can you tell? Me neither. This was probably a waste of time, although it was somewhat effective on the legs. In the third picture, you can see I simply painted over the backs with silver to get chain mail. The black/white undercoat again works well.

On the Knights and Blades figures, the sculpted detail on the shields was pretty much obscured, so I was trying to avoid that here. I thinned down my undercoat grey and painted it on, allowing the black/white undercoat contrast to remain.

I then dry brushed thinned white over the top of that. Again, I pretty much just painted right down the length of the strip. I painted the crosses on, and I'm done.

Oops! No, I'm not, I forgot the flesh!

As you can see, it's probably not a big deal if you forget the flesh. It's more effective when you're looking level with the figures, because they have helmets, as opposed to this downward angle. I look at my figures wistfully more than I get to play with them, so it's not wasted here!

Anyway, the time to paint these was about an hour and fifteen minutes, so my total is now 5:15. I'd guess my painting is more than half done.

Got a little more done last night.

I checked up on my sample of my wife's old tea. I thought it looked pretty good, but I didn't think it was fine enough to be used for 6mm. Maybe some 25mm stuff.

Here are some old samples. The colonial British on the right are based with my usual scheme (and, may I just point out, if you've never seen facings on 6mm figures, you need to zoom all the way in!) The samurai on the left are an experiment, using this Litko plywood bases with flexible steel under it. The base was sparsely textured and dappled light brown and tan colors, then three different static grasses were applied; from left to right, they are Woodland Scenics light green and medium green, and Games Workshop. I think I like the medium green the best, but I'm not overjoyed with any of them. They look too sparse to me. It would probably look better had I not gone so light with the ground color. I asked my wife's opinion, but she just said the British base looks like a manicured lawn, which I suppose is a strike against that.

I also painted up the Knights. The general scheme was the same as the foot knights, so not much to say about that. The metal shows up better on them, probably because I used more gunmetal. There's a bit of wood pulled off the craft stick showing up, that's not intentional.

That took about forty minutes, so my total time is now 4:00.

I got the stands glued on at lunch.

I used epoxy to glue the strips down on the metal stands, then went back and used epoxy to bevel out the ground.

I started mocking up a bit of the tea flock...I'm not sure that's going to work. Maybe I'll get a chance to fool around with it tonight.

Time was thirty minutes, taking the total to 3:20.

Here's a short painting session on the foot knights.

Some of the silver parts still looked white, so I went over the metal again, this time with Testor's Model Master Steel. It was, I thought, about the lightest metal I have, but turned out to be an interesting contrast to the current color. I liked it, although it's pretty subtle and unnoticable at any distance from the figures. They look more silver than white, though.

I also panted the bases green. I'm not sure how I'll base them. I consider it to be practice for the larger upcoming project of the Baccus AWI figures, so I won't just do what I normally do. I've been collecting my wife's used teabags, some German homeopathic tea, which has a very interesting light green color and a blend of textures. So far, I'm leaning towards trying that (thanks to Bryan for the idea).

This took me 30 minutes to do, so I'm up to 2:50 so far. I also looked at my lens and had a big, nasty smudge on it. I cleaned it up, so the pictures should stop having the blurry right side.

Okay, so I decided to start on the three sticks of foot knights. For whatever reason, the spray paint didn't cover that well.

It's just Krylon spray paint, nothing special. It normally does just fine. It was acting more like a wash, fading off the raised areas. At first, I thought maybe it was mold release on the figures. I didn't wash them or do anthing to prep them first. However, on one stick, the front was bad but the back was okay. The cavalry was particularly bad, so I took a little time to just roughly paint them black.

I then drybrushed them white. I've heard of people doing this so that your raised areas tend to be brighter and highlighted, but I never paint with thin enough paints to get this effect. It does, however, show off the detail well, and is quicker than waiting for a wash to dry. It doesn't photograph particularly well, though!

This worked out really well for me, though, as I found my metallics were transulcent enough for this effect to really make a difference. I liberally drybrushed the first stick silver, and the last two with gunmetal followed by silver. I didn't see much of a difference, both looked pretty nice. I had in mind a pretty simple paint scheme, just lots of silver plate mail with crusader crosses, so I painted the parts to be white first grey, the drybrushed white over it. Painted the red crosses on, and viola!

So, with wenty minutes for black paint and white drybrush, and one hour to actually paint the figures (6 stands, 18 strips, 108 individual figures). The total time so far is 2:20.

I got two new 6mm fantasy armies in from Irregular the other day. A buddy and I went in and ordered them. He got two as well, giving us a total of six, counting my Undead and Elves. I thought I'd detail the project as I worked on it.

The first army I started on is generic Good Guy knights. They're made up mostly of Irregular's Medievals. I took about half the army and started cleaning up and planning my basing.

We're doing 6mm on 15mm base sizes. Not exactly big bases, but it's a slight compromise between size and cost, plus it's how I'd already based my other two armies. I noted my stand estimates were a little off. I had 6 strips of knights for 4 stands, probably a typo, and 12 strips of spears for 4 stands, definitely a mistake. They are close order, and I can definitely fit 2x2 strips on a stand, leaving me with three.

I started off by cleaning up the figures. They're all pretty good, but tended to have a lot of flash along the bottom of the base. I cleaned them all up with gate cutters, and trimmed the flash along the figures. Although some looked pretty bad, like this spearmen, they were easy to clean up and most of the strips were cast just fine (except for the bottom of the base, which had been left with sprue).

Next, I start laying them out on the base. The cavalry are about one horse too wide to fit two strips across the base, so I saw an inside horse off. By alternating sides, I can put two cutoffs together somewhere else. I used this trick with my Undead, as you can see below.

For the foot stands, I cut one strip in half and put part in both the front and rear rank, allowing three strips to make one stand.

After trimming everything up, they're glued to craft sticks and spray painted black. Total time: one hour.

Kieran Mahony has updated his 6mm Fantasy Wargaming with more pictures of his nice armies.

I've been looking at 6mm Fantasy again lately. Not as many resources as 6mm Sci-Fi, but here's what I've found:

--==> 6mm Fantasy Resources <==--

The 6mm yahoo groups is a good resource (all genres, not just Fantasy):
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/6mm_Miniatures/
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/6mm_Minis_Photos/

6mm Wargaming has pictures of 6mm Lord of the Rings armies. Note the judicious use of customized figures in other scales:
http://6mm.wargaming.info/page1.shtml

Mercenary Brush has some pictures of painted Baccus figurs:
http://mercenarybrush.com/6mmfantasy.shtml

TMP Thread:
http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=52786

Pictures of my own 6mm Hordes of the Things armies:
http://www.littleleadheroes.com/archives/000393.html#000393

--==> 6mm Fantasy Manufacturers <==--

Baccus:
http://www.baccus6mm.com/

Irregular:
http://www.irregularminiatures.co.uk/

Lots of Ancients and Medieval figures would be appropriate, too.

--==> 10mm Fantasy Manufacturers <==--

Irregular:
http://www.irregularminiatures.co.uk/

Kallistra:
http://www.kallistra.co.uk/Shop/H%20and%20H%20Shop.html

Minifigs:
http://www.minifigs.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=194_209

Pendraken:
http://www.pendraken.co.uk/fantasy.htm

Warrior:
http://www.warrioronline.demon.co.uk/10mm/10fantasy.htm

I painted up my sample pack of Continentals, and placed an order for a full American army through Heritage Studios. Read on...

These things paint up really fast, and a lot of fun. I had a hard time moving back to my 15mm Napoleonics after these two sample packs were painted up! I think they look great, too. I can't wait to get them based up and on the table.

I've left the standards off the Americans. I didn't really intend to represent a specific unit, and there doesn't really appear to be an obvious solution for generic standards, so I'll leave them off while I'm thinking about it.

Here's how I'm thinking of doing my 6mm AWI figures:

Piquet normally uses four stands, so I'm planning on four 40x20mm stands, with two ranks of 8. The right-most on the front rank will be an officer, and there will be a drummer in the rear.

For cosmetic purposes, I will include a 20x20mm command stand in the middle. In the front rank: line, officer, drummer, line; in the rear: line, regimental standards, and line. I will try to put a colonel out in front, as well.

That works out to be exactly one Baccus package, $6.60, with an extra command stand (which, you can see, I don't have yet). At around 12 units per army, it looks like about $100 per army or $200 total. That's about in line with cheap 15mm costs, and definitely cheaper than 25mm.

I ordered a couple of packs of Baccus AWI as samples from Heritage Studios (excellent service), and have the first ones painted up. Read on...

I started on the British line in tricorne and campaign dress. Here they are primed-- chubby little fellows, aren't they!

I wasn't too impressed, at first. My 6mm experience is H&R, GHQ and Irregular, and this chunkier style was a bit of a departure. However, I felt better once I started painting them. They actually feature paintable detail, and I thought they looked pretty good painted up.

It took me an hour and 15 minutes to paint these. I'm thinking of 16 per 40x20mm stand, so this would be two stands. It takes me about six hours to do four 40x20mm stands of 15mm Napoleonics, so say three hours for two stands. They definitely paint up more quickly. I've got to order some bases now and see how they looked based up properly.

I've always wanted to do 6mm on big bases. Baccus has some very inspring pictures on his site. Here is a very inspiring photo of French battalions made up of over 100 figures each. In this photo of British and Portuguese troops, notice the layout of the lines...Charles Kirke has his officers on the flanks and drummers to the rear like a real battalion might be formed up. Very nice. In this SYW picture, it even has a regimental gun on the flank of the unit.

I was thinking about doing AWI. How would the 6mm cost compare to 25mm? If I did AWI in 25mm, I'd use Perry figures at $12 for 6, or in my case, $24 a unit. For Baccus 6mm, I was thinking of 2 ranks of 24 per stand. At $6.60 for 80 figures, that's about $8 a unit. Adler would be a little more expensive, about $12 a unit. Even going "bag base," it's still 1/3-1/2 the price of 25mm figures.

I think I'll save those big Perry figures for skirmish games...

Kieran Mahony's 6mm Wargaming page has some great 6mm pictures and terrain tips. He also includes how he assembled his LotR armies.

The Wargaming Bonanza has some really beautiful Baccus 6mm GA brigade pics.

Bob MacKenzie has put up a page with 6mm infantry size comparisons.

I recently made some domed habitats for 6mm Sci-Fi Dirtside II games.

I've been looking at 6mm Sci-Fi stuff lately, and whipped up a quick summary.

--==> DIRTSIDE 2 LINKS <==--

The Dirtside 2 rules:
http://tinyurl.com/2sljb

Dirtside 2 vehicle generator. You can use this to design vehicles and
print out a stat card.
http://www.cowell.org/~andy/min/ds2/gen.html

Ground Zero Games, the author's company:
http://www.gzg.com/

--==> 6MM RESOURCES <==--

There are two main 6mm yahoo groups which have some nice pictures in
the photos and file sections (all eras, not just Sci-Fi):

http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/6mm-Miniatures/
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/6mm_Miniatures/

Some general websites with pics:
http://www.wayneolivant.karoo.net/hws_ds2.htm
http://www.users.bigpond.com/derekfulton/Gallery/Gallery.htm
http://www.voidgamers.com/channel/sci-fi/slammers/b.26.html?sort_hits=1

Some really nice GW Epic pics:
http://aofk.co.uk/mercenarybrush/ea.shtml
http://aofk.co.uk/mercenarybrush/articles/articles.shtml

A great scratchbuilder:
http://www.warfactory.co.uk/gallery/scifis/galpic4.html
http://www.warfactory.co.uk/scenery/turret.html

--==> MANUFACTURERS <==--

Adler Dark Star
http://home.clara.net/adlermin/
http://www.historicalminiatures.com/admasf.htm
http://photos.groups.yahoo.com/group/6mm_Miniatures/lst?.dir=/Sicarii%27s+Science+Fiction&.src=gr&.order=&.view=t&.done=http%3a//briefcase.yahoo.com/

Alternative Armies
http://www.flintloque.com/acatalog/ALTERNATIVE_ARMIES_6mm_SCI_FI_157.html

Amazon Miniatures
http://www.amazonminiatures.com/amazonfantasy/scifi_am.htm

Baccus
http://www.baccus6mm.com/
http://www.heritage-studios.com/ (in the USA)

Brigade Models
http://www.brigademodels.co.uk/

C-in-C
http://www.pfc-cinc.shoppingcartsplus.com/page/page/295095.htm
http://photos.groups.yahoo.com/group/6mm_miniatures/lst?.dir=/C-in-C+Sci-Fi+Microarmor&.order=&.view=l&.src=gr&.done=http%3a//photos.groups.yahoo.com/group/6mm_miniatures/lst%3f%26.dir=/%26.src=gr%26.view=l

Dark Realm
http://darkrealmminiatures.com/
http://www.heritage-studios.com/ (in the USA)

Force XXI
http://www.midiowa.com/colsten/

Games Workshop
http://www.specialist-games.com/epic/catalogue.asp

Gladiator Games
http://www.gladiatorgames.co.uk/1_300th_science_fiction.htm

Ground Zero Games
http://www.gtns.co.uk/store1/commerce.cgi
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Zone/3877/dsgallery.htm
http://www.tonsha.uklinux.net/bif00_5.html
Cygnus X1 - 6mm Gallery

Hall of Ancient Warriors (just found these guys, don't know much)
http://www.users.bigpond.com/brianhallhaw/HTML_pages/haw_scifi.html

Iron Wind Metals-- Battletech
http://www.ironwindmetals.com/

Irregular Miniatures
http://www.irregularminiatures.co.uk/
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/6mm-Miniatures/files/Irregular%206mm%20sci-fi/

Monday Knight Productions
http://www.mondayknight.com/mkpindex.htm

NavWar
http://www.navwar.freeserve.co.uk/

Old Crow
http://www.oldcrowmodels.co.uk/6mm.htm

Peter Pig
http://www.peterpig.demon.co.uk/range12.htm

Riveirsco/Tin Soldier Days of Empire
http://www.tin-soldier.com/doe/doe1.html

Scotia
http://www.scotiagrendel.com/scotia/scotiasf.html
http://photos.groups.yahoo.com/group/6mm_miniatures/lst?.dir=/Sci-fi+-+Scotia+6mm&.order=&.view=l&.src=gr&.done=http%3a//photos.groups.yahoo.com/group/6mm_miniatures/lst%3f%26.dir=/%26.src=gr%26.view=l
Stan Johansen
http://www.stanjohansenminiatures.com/micro.htm

Steve Jackson-- Ogre
http://www.sjgames.com/ogre/miniatures/

Timecast
http://www.timecastmodels.co.uk/range_20/range_20.html

David's Wargaming Depot is a nice site. He's mostly into 6mm Napoleonics but has other stuff on his site. There's also a very revealing size comparison pic of Irregular vs. Adler 6mm Nappies.

I completed a couple of 6mm Irregular Miniatures fantasy Hordes of the Things armies. (Whoa, I completed something...) Read on...

I bought these after seeing the Fellowship of the Ring (yes, FotR...) for the fun of it and have poked at them since. I got in a snit this weekend and finished them off. I figure you could easily paint an entire army in a day. Mine took a bit longer because I used the Miracle Dip (which makes your net painting time faster, but has to dry overnight) and my basing takes forever. Here they are:

That block is about 8"/20mm square, plus these aren't slimmed down armies but have lots of extras for variety, so it's obviously rather economical on space (although these are based on 15mm sized bases, so that's not a function of the figure scale). Here are some 24 point armies deployed:

I found the figures fun to paint. It's a little different-- while in larger scales you can enjoy painting a particular figure, in 6mm you can blow through the figures and enjoy the overall effect. There is more room for interesting dioramas (not that mine are that interesting, but they were fun to do). Here are some closer pics; you can also poke through my fantasy gallery for some older pictures:

I poked around with HotT 2.0. It seems like a decent enough set and rules, if a tad difficult to actually read. I've never been particularly attracted to WRG rulesets, especially since they're largely geared towards Ancients (not my cup of tea) and competitive play (not my style of play). Still, for a quick friendly game with armies you can paint in a day, not bad at all.

The Franco-Prussian Wargame Campaign 1870 site is devoted to an interesting solo 6mm Franco-Prussian wargaming campaign. It has info on an interesting hex-based terrain system, as well a solo orders generator.

Hodgenet has some nice stuff, including 6mm Napoleonics and info on Photographing Miniatures.

In addition to Baccus 6mm, NavWar now has 6mm Samurai. The codes are as follows:

MR21 Mounted Samurai
MR22 Samurai w/sword
MR23 Samurai Firing Bow
MR24 Ashigaru w/arquebuse
MR25 Ashigaru w/bow
MR26 Ashigaru w/spear

Baccus 6mm has included a nice How to Paint 6mm Figures section on their site.

Baccus 6mm has their first release of 6mm Samurai up.

There's a new 6mm Miniatures discussion group with active moderators to curb abuse at the 6mm_Miniatures Yahoo group.

6mm Wargaming is an MSN group which includes an Assault on Hamutal Yom Kippur scenario (map here).

DBx in 6mm is a good general 6mm site as well as having DBA/DBM info.

Peter of Baccus 6mm has put up a piece defending the validity of 6mm wargaming and comparing it to 25mm. Very nice. Plus, he has reduced his international shipping costs.

IanH's Wargame Pages has an excellent idea for 6mm buildings, using actual photographs to create the exterior.

The new address for 6mm micro armour manufacturer Pfc/CinC is:

1202 State Highway 95
Princeton, MN 55371

recon110 put up several good modern micro armor pictures in the Yahoo 6mm Miniatures photo album. You may need to be a group member to view them.

Ian's hobbies page has some 6mm tips and resource info.

Peter Berry, owner of Baccus 6mm, is now devoting himself to running his business full-time. Hopefully this means that his samurai range is just around the corner!

Gildas Facit has some info on 2mm wargaming, as well as a number of scans of Heroics & Ros 6mm Medieval and Renaissance figures.

IanH's Wargame Pages has a great number of tips for 6mm modelling as well as playing Crossfire.

Check out the news for July 17th on Baccus 6mm. A guy in England is building 6mm English Civil War figures at 1:1 figure scale.